Sad life of a Polish migrant in the UK. Ch. 4 - Language

I prefer the "byeeeeeeeee" version ;-)

i sometimes use 'bye, bye'. it might be a northern - southern thing.
or it's just a childhood phrase that's stuck.

osiol
lol damn right i did!!!! :D

That's why they have body odor

'bye bye' is official International Learner English, one of those things learners 'know' everybody says but which native speakers rarely actually use.

IME 'bye bye' is restricted to usage with and by children, while adults use 'bye' (or 'see ya' or whatever).

May i comment that in Poland most things are by the book, lets take food for example the standard dish of Schabowe, its a battened out slice of loin of Pork with breadcrums. Now this dish DOES not alter at all and totally no matter where you go. I say why not throw in some cayenne pepper, a bit of ground coriander some herbs and spices, all into the breadcrumbs. Poles say no thats not the way we do it. Its the same with mash Potatoe, its mashed potatoe and thats it, no cream, no butter no celeriac. I say experiment a little improve and break the mould.

The same can be said of the Polish language, it is Polish and thats it no new words, when looking through a Nieruchomosci magazine everything is dobre this and dobze that, with a few Bardzos inbetween. For example Lazienka - bardzo dobre. Imagine a similar description in the Enlgish language.

In Britian there are many alterations to the language as there is in the States, if you talk proper English anybody will understand you and most can reciprocate in plain (Queens English) when the need requires.

But accents are another matter altogether basically most Poles are fcuked on that score. Sorry.

I tend to find that too. The range of language used does tend to be limited. They are totally blown away when I pull out all the British accents and dip into dialect. Their jaws just drop when I whip out the Doric (my dialect).

They think Silesian and Kashubian introduce so much diversity but their eyes really haven't been opened. My Canadian roommate in Izumo was equally in the dark.

When it comes to accents and dialect, few countries come near the UK for variety. Especially given the relatively small area that the UK covers.

It is because in Poland you pronounce the letters as they are written in the book but in english the typed form is different than the pronounced one.

That's true. It's just the outcome of a quite successful policy of unifying the country made up of three parts that lost connection with each other for over one hundred years, carried out by the Polish government after Poland re-emerged on the map of Europe.

This policy of imposing the standard polish through the educational system was later on continued by the commie regime after the end of WWII. All Poles were suppose to be equal and that included the way they were to communicate. Generally the commie government did a lot to destroy the local/regional communities as they endangered the centralized system the country was supposed to be steered from now on.

There is also but a one more thing, the new lands and their new inhabitants. The speakers of the purest standard/literature polish are to be found in Szczecin and Wrocław. That’s due to the fact that it was mainly settled with people from various parts of pre-WWII Poland, mostly by Poles from central and eastern Poland( today’s Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine).

One part of my wife’s family came from Warsaw while the other came from today’s Belarus. Even though my wife has lived all her life in Wielkopolska she has problems with understanding my grandmother who speaks only the dialect of Wielkopolska.

“Na bane młusisz płujść na szage bez the hynhy.” :)

All of her family speak with standard polish as it enabled them to communicate better with the locals and eventually blend in the community. She actually hates it when I throw in the odd word in Wlkp. dialect once in a while. She finds it to sound as a vulgar speech of uneducated peasants.

It's the same in the UK. Most dialects sound uncultured and aren't used by white-collar workers. The working class make the heaviest use of them. In Polish, differences are more slight. Most tend to know the dialects of others based on logic, unless it's heavy Silesian ;) ;) For example, na pole or na dwór are different but known amongst most people. I don't think the same can be said for most dialects in the UK unless people really take an interest in it.

Polish food habits are mostly about what I call "replication of experience". In everyday terms, Poles are heavily into comfort food. You don't go messing around with comfort food. Most people want to know just what things will taste like ahead of time.

When food supplies were haphazard and/or rationed, you didn't go experimenting around (as replacing ruined or inedible food could be difficult or impossible). The food infrastructure has changed, but basic attitudes toward food haven't changed.

On the other hand, Polish people mostly like the personal touch and aren't much into impersonal or mass-produced food (while anglophones are mostly happy to shovel down machine made industrial food of dubious provenance).

One result is that scratch a Pole and you'll often find a food critic. Anglophone tastebuds are often dulled through industrial food and the desire for novelty. A blander and generally more restricted diet has had the effect of heightening many Polish people's tastebuds and it's not uncommon to hear people debate the merits of one-day or three-day pickles, whether the berries in the compote were picked too early or too late or the difference between fresh farm and store eggs.


This is true mostly of public language, which was debased in the communist period. Polish journalistic language is particularly effected (as is the dialogue on Polish soap operas which is especially dire).

Everyday conversation (when your ears are keen enough) tends to be a lot more creative, especially when people disagree or are describing people or situations that they dislike.

In terms of dialects, on the one hand it's kind of sad that previous differences have largely disappeared, but on the other hand, a highly standardized language which all have access to is good for social mobility while a lot of diversity and a big gap between writing and pronunciation .... aren't.

not sure what myth lies behind that, probably something like: 'Poland is of course poorer so they definitely have less food and worse than we so since we can't afford meat then they can't afford proper food'.

To clarify - in Poland we have no cultural experience of a famine, this had happened obky in 20th century which is like yesterday, after the major wars.

When I read books or blogs imagining Poland in say 16th century, and there is a housewife with five kids crying at the sight of meat scraps that she finally has - well, it's not like that.

If you refer to Kurlansky's 'Salt. A history', you'll learn that we have not experienced hunger because we eat vegetables and we preserve food with rock salt (something that the Brits refuse to eat even today, they use sea salt). That's why you had to eat pies, to use half-rotten scraps of meat, that's why there are no forests - they were cut out not for ships, but for fuel to evaporate brine.

mayby in the uk we should speak polish incase we offend the polish minority =]

oh ffs, stfu until you know what you're talking about, you're as bad as those people who think Poles only eat cabbage! :p


don't worry, we're not as PC as some people, we don't get so easily offended

im sure if i start now ill get the hang of it by 2020

well we do everything else for every other nation!!!! We bend over backwards to make people feel welcome and most of them throw it straight back in our faces by complaining/moaning/crime etc etc!!!!!

We were even thinking of foreign law in the UK at one point!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT???? 'when in Rome.....................'

i was wondering if go to poland for work and couldnt find ajob what would happen to me would i be able to claim jobseekers allowance??? or claim anything?

yeah right, you would be on your own, fending for yourself on the streets, it would force you to come home. Just because we welcome them with open arms, dosen't mean its the same when you turn it around, Poland does not have enough to look after its own let alone its foreign visitors/guests.

NO. It isnt Britain!

And we do? :D


Time for us to become a little more like Poland I think ;)

well to be honest we have more than Poland, we would have more than enough if we didn't give it away to other EU countries :)


Actually i would take Australia's lead :)

so is there a big homless problem in poland? cause no work=no money=no home=hungry=move to uk

or the rest of the world


100% agreed!


yeah, so why bother moving in the first place, if you're only going to become yet another Polish immigrant LOL

yeah those too :)


thank goodness somebody else can see the light at the end of the tunnel!!

cause i would liketo live in poland

well, I'd like to live somewhere with snow-covered mountains, but I can't make a living there, so I'm stuck in this dump... but at least I get paid a decent salary here!

well i think its getting harder to get work here there must be another eu country that has simuler policys on immergration where theres work

Why the hell would you go to a foreign country to leech?

i have my reasons but better of keeping them to myself

of course not... why on earth do you think everyone wants to move to the UK or Ireland?